"home" is a relative word

so when i am at my parent's apartment, i say "home" and i mean the house at Yuill Circle where i lived for three years with some of the awesomest roommates ever before i had to move closer to school and later out of state. over my Christmas break i am spending most of my nights at this house, aka "the art house." but when i am here i find myself thinking, "i need to do such-and-such when i get home", that is, my house on Centennial in Boise. on the other hand, a few weeks ago when i was on my way here from Boise for the break and i said i was "going home", i was referring to the city of Boston, but it felt most appropriate to start off my stay at my parents' place, cause that's kinda "home", too... anyway!
i have been really, really, really happy to be here. it's just great to be around people who love me and know me and still like me, too. sure e-mail and blogs and phone calls are great, but since i think of "home" as where my relationships are, it's really good to be here. so, to my friends in the other "home" places, sorry i can't visit just now, but i'll try to keep in touch.
and to everybody, happy new year!

back to the future - part III

I open this post with a picture of me and my other human housemate, Chica. A picture of her son Zeek and the most-beloved cat Sammy can be found in part II .



Here is a picture from Thanksgiving. I spent it with Tot, her family in nearby Meridian, Idaho, and the inimitable Chris. Tot her mom and I had just finished the most annoying Scrabble game ever. We each had trouble getting good letters and it just never got exciting. But we persevered, and took the picture to prove our success at finishing! Oops, I blinked. Oh well.

Finally, a follow up to my last
post. (I guess I finally figured out how to make the link thing work. Can you tell?!?) Basically, a fellow grad student of violin, J, needed another violinist and a violist for a quartet gig at a wedding in McCall, a ski resort town about 90 miles north of Boise. Since it's a pretty good distance, J decided to make a vacation out of the trip, so she rented a hotel room for the night before the wedding and asked if myself and the violist, K, would like to join her. She didn't exactly have to twist my arm. Sunday morning before the wedding, we took a drive up into the mountains near Cascade to visit a primitive hot spring pool. After soaking for about an hour we drove to McCall, met up with the cellist, and played happy wedding music at the stunning White Tail Lodge. The wedding took place in a room that overlooks the lake, and beyond that mountains, just after the sun set behind those mountains. Wow. To finish off the fun, after we finished playing we took the tip a member of the wedding party gave us and used it to eat at the Mexican restaurant Chapala. Fast, cheap, good. And then J paid us $100 each and thanked us.
"No, no, thank you!"